Narciso Botello

Narciso Botello (about 1813–1889) was a chief of staff for Mexican General Joaquín Ramírez y Sesma before the Mexican–American War and was the first Southern California member of the California State Assembly after California organized its legislature.

Personal

Botello was born about 1813 in Real de los Álamos in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (colonial México). He moved with his brothers to the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in Alta California, in 1832 or 1833, when it was within independent Mexico .

Shortly after, he married a daughter of General Joaquin Ramirez y Sesma, commandment of the local Mexican military department. In the first census of California under United States administration, in 1850, he was listed as married to Francisca Ruiz, with two children, Narciso and Francisca. He may also have had a third child, Maria, who is listed in the 1860 census.[1][2][3]

Botello died in East Los Angeles on November 20, 1889, at the age of seventy-six. He was survived by a daughter.[2] At that time his home was on Hawkins Street in East L.A.[3]

Mexican rule

When Los Angeles was within Mexico, Botello was chief of staff for Mexican General Ramirez y Sesma. His two brothers also married daughters of the general.[2]

In 1833, he was provisionally granted four square leagues, or 17,706 acres, of the Rancho Santa Maria de Los Peñasquitos, but because he "failed to fulfill the requirements," the rancho was then granted to Jose Joaquin Ortega in 1843.[4]

In 1837, Botello was secretary of the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles.[5] "He was for eight years Jefe de los Archivos of Los Angeles, and served a term as Prefecto.[3]

In 1845 lands of Rancho Ex-Mission San Buenaventura were granted by the Mexican government to Botillo and a man named Jose Arnaz, and later it was said that the mission's former lands were "illegally sold" to Arnaz.[6]

Statehood

After California became a state in 1850, Botello was the first member of the California Assembly in the California Legislature from the southern part of the state, and he served two terms. Afterward, he was county recorder of Los Angeles County, or, in Spanish, jefe de archivos. He also was a prefeto or judge.[2]

Botello was a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, the governing body of the city, in 1852–53.[7]

In 1856, Botello was a member of several committees of the California Assembly, including one charged with "the use of Spanish missions in California in facilitating resources for war against the United States, revoking mission land grants/sales made by Pico, and continuing to rent the lands."[8]

In 1859, he was a notary public.[5]

Legacy

Botello completed two manuscripts — Anales del Sur de la California and Comunicaciones Sueltas de un Angelino — to which Hubert Howe Bancroft and his team referred in writing the Bancroft histories of California.[9] The former is now at the Bancroft Library.[10]

References
  1. "Pregunta 506 — 18 May 2008," LosCalifornios.org
  2. "A Pioneer: One of the Oldest Settlers in Los Angeles Gone," Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1889, page 2
  3. "Death of Narciso Botello," Los Angeles Herald, November 21, 1889, page 2
  4. San Diego Mexican & Chicano History (with map)
  5. Del Valle Family Papers, Seaver Center for Western History Research, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
  6. Mission Buenaventura brochure
  7. Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials,1850-1938, compiled under direction of Municipal Reference Library, City Hall, Los Angeles (March 1938, reprinted 1966). "Prepared ... as a report on Project No. SA 3123-5703-6077-8121-9900 conducted under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration."
  8. "Finding Aid to the Documentos Para la Historia de California, 1802–1847," Bancroft Library
  9. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft
  10. The Literary Portrayals of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (bibliography)


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